Paris - 16 April

Is it Yousas, Ciao or Bonjour? Ah we are now in Paris, France so it must be Bonjour! When I was a teenager and we flew home from England to Australia I remember distinctly flying over the Swiss Alps. Well I got to experience it again 28 years later when we flew over the mountain range again on our way from Rome to Paris. They are certainly breathtakingly beautiful from above.

After a little delay at the airport waiting for our pickup we arrived at our hotel and have been given a huge room with accompanying huge marble bathroom, on the corner of the building. All very old worldy french in decor. We suspect the space may be on par with our one bedder in Rome!

We had plenty of daylight left to explore the city so our first port of call was the famous Eiffel Tower.

While waiting in line to purchase tickets to the top of the tower we got chatting with a couple and their daughter who I immediately knew from sight, even bofore they spoke, had to be from New York, USA. There is something distinct about the way men dress, especially older men, in New York and this gentleman tipified that look. They had 'popped over' from London for the day, where they had 'popped over for the weekend' from New York to celebrate their young daughters birthday (she was all of 11 years of age). This must have been his second marraige as neither he nor she were young and he mentioned his adult sons, one of which was in 'global banking'. They told us that they had spent a holiday in Sydney with the 'global banking' son and had watched the new years eve fireworks from "Lindsay Fox's yatch on the habour". It was a great night because, "Lindsay Fox had secured a Restaurant especially for his party, overlooking the habour, before taking them out on his yatch". It is terrible to say but this gentleman fitted every New York cliche right down to the comment, "no body speaks english in this town, so I am going to wonder off to find a fellow New Yorker while you girls do your thing at the top of the tower". My observation and subsequent statement is, "If you move amongst the VIPs of the world, why you standing in a queue with a whole lot of tourists waiting for a lift to the top of the Eiffel Tower?" Need I say more.

Ron was keen to travel all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower but I wasn't so fussed (a little nervous of heights). Anyway, his enthusiasm got me into the lift on that final accent to the top. After my initial gitters walking to the rails, the view was outstanding which took my mind off the height so I became a little more comfortable. Ron was as excited as if he had just entered a 'CAT Diesel Engine Museum' (the holy grail on a Ron holiday).

After we had finished with Eiffel we spent the evening on a tourist boat on the River Seine. All very nice as the weather was ideal and the sun did not set until around 8pm.

For dinner we 'popped' into a restaurant across from our hotel and ordered Steak Tartare. Of course I had forgotten that Steak Tartare was minced raw beef served with capers, raw onion and chopped tomatoe with a creamy sauce, so you can imagine Ron's horror when our dishes arrived. Laughing at our mistake, we asked that our raw pile of mince meat undergo some sort of cooking process and the waitress was happy to oblige. The final result was tasty and we both enjoyed it.